From Truth Out: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13394-the-anti-clause-reverend-billys-no-click-christmas
By Greg Palast
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Even for New York, this was WEIRD. There were a half-dozen Santa Clauses on Second Avenue getting a sermon from a Midwestern preacher who looked like a cross between televangelist Jerry Falwell and a white-haired Elvis.
The Santa crew and their mini-skirted elves were on their way to get drunk (drunker?) with another thousand Santa impersonators at “SantaCon,” an annual gathering of St. Nicks. But they were willing to let the Reverend Billy attempt to save their souls.
Reverend Billy did not object to their plans for lubrication, but to their original Sin: collaborating with the Devil’s work known as “Christmas Shopping.”
Was this some kind of joke? Yes, and a brilliant one.
Reverend Billy, pastor of the Church of Stop Shopping, is the Stephen Colbert of American hyper-commercialism. For more than a decade, the Reverend has been bringing Americans the Good News that there is life after Wal-Mart.
“Repent and give up your iPod to the Lord! Steve Jobs is not the iSaviour!” The Santas, cracked up as, one by one, they got the joke.
Like Colbert, the Reverend is never seen out of costume nor out of character. In his reversed collar, bouffant hair-do, white pointy shoes and Elmer Gantry suit, he has, in fact, performed 200 for-real baptisms, as many marriages – and been arrested 70 times.
Continue reading at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13394-the-anti-clause-reverend-billys-no-click-christmas
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